SOUTH KINGSTOWN — In an effort to save millions of dollars by encouraging top paid professors at the University of Rhode Island to retire early, higher education officials yesterday evening approved a hefty increase to a voluntary early-retirement bonus scheduled to be phased out this June, from $7,000 to $20,000 per retiree.

URI President Robert L. Carothers asked the Board of Governors for Higher Education to support the one-time offer, which extends to roughly one-third of URI’s 655 full-time faculty who are over age 58 and have worked at the university for 15 years or more. Staff who meet the same age and length of service requirements are also eligible. The university does not have a mandatory retirement age. About 235 professors are age 59 or older; of those, 107 are 65 or older.

University officials said that about 25 professors and staff who retired last year received the $7,000 bonus. They estimate that twice that many may take advantage of the larger bonus this spring. Eligible faculty and staff have until mid-April to decide.

Rhode Island College, the Community College of Rhode Island and the Office of Higher Education have given early retirees a one-time payment of 40 percent of their base salary or a one-time payment of $7,000. Until now, URI has allowed only the $7,000 payment.

“We talked to people and found the $7,000 wasn’t enough,” Carothers told the board. “We didn’t want to go up to a 40-percent payment, since that would be about $40,000. So we decided on the $20,000 figure.”

At an average $100,000 salary plus $40,000 a year in benefits for veteran faculty, URI would save about $120,000 next year for every professor who retires early, said the university’s new provost, Donald H. DeHayes. If 50 professors were to retire early, URI would save $6 million, less what it would spend to replace the veteran faculty with lecturers or new professors. New faculty earn $50,000 to $70,000 a year, depending on their discipline, plus benefits. Part-time lecturers earn $3,200 per course, no benefits, and are limited to two courses per semester.

Carothers cautioned it is difficult to estimate how much would be saved, as not all of the early retirees will be replaced. He also said university officials will review the university’s changing needs before making decisions about what areas will require more faculty.

“We are looking to hire back a lesser number,” Carothers said. “It takes longer than [a few months] to bring new people in. And we may not hire them in the same places they came out of.”

URI’s undergraduate enrollment has grown by about 1,000 students in the past few years, up to 14,800 last fall. Carothers said the university would hire enough lecturers to cover needed sections of popular courses for the coming academic year.

DeHayes said he will meet with the deans of URI’s main academic and professional colleges — Arts & Sciences, Business Administration, Engineering, Environment and Life Sciences, Human Sciences and Services, Nursing, Pharmacy, Graduate Studies, and the Graduate School of Oceanography — over the next several months to map out potential areas for expansion and reduction.

“We need to strategically define a set of academic priorities,” DeHayes said. “We need to decide what our needs are in the new economy, new advances in research and new modes of learning that we find with contemporary students.”

The university will continue to expand its emphasis on “experiential learning,” which values internships, community service and hands on experience, alongside traditional classroom learning, DeHayes said.

“That could become a flagship dimension of the URI educational experience,” DeHayes said. “It might mean different kinds of faculty roles, such as facilitator.”

Last September, the Board of Governors for Higher Education voted to discontinue the early-retirement programs that had been in place for a decade at the state’s three public colleges and the Office of Higher Education. The programs will end June 21.

Designed to encourage employees over age 58 who had worked for the state college system for 15 or more years to retire early, the program has cost about $7 million over the years, said Jack Warner, the state’s higher education commissioner.

Faculty union heads at RIC and CCRI said that, so far, just 15 veteran professors at each institution have expressed their intent to take the early retirement bonus this spring.

“I thought there would have been more,” said Marjorie Norquist, president of CCRI’s faculty union.

Jason Blank, RIC’s faculty union president, said the college will lose experience and history when the veteran professors leave.

“What I regret is that these are some of our massively productive heavy hitters, teachers par excellence,” Blank said, “who have been at it for so many years.”

jjordan@projo.com